There are many boardgames about wizards throwing fireballs at things, but very few about the other kind of magic, the kind where skilled performers go on stage and make their audience think that magic might be real. One of those few games is Trickerion, an intensely strategic worker placement game with many details to keep track of and very limited …. well, everything. Between limited resources, limited time and limited space, every decision is tough. Just the way we like it.

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Looking through the window into the garden, you see two rivalling gangs of geishas fighting for control. Wait. WHAT? The setting doesn’t always have to make much sense for a beautiful game, especially not when it’s a very short and fun abstract.

The Maya people had a very sophisticated calendar system, consisting of multiple counts with different lengths. One of these counts is the 260-day tzolk’in. It’s also the driving force in the game, everything is moved by the turning of the tzolk’in gear, and timing your actions to make the best use of that is essential.

The Roman Empire has always been a popular setting for games, so Concordia is not innovative in that respect. But it is a game by Mac Gerdts, so you know it will not be a run-of-the-mill, nothing-new-to-see-here game. Gerdts’s games are special. But even by the high standards he set with Antike, among others, he has outdone himself with Concordia.

With the amazing, ongoing success of cooperative game Pandemic, it’s no surprise that there are not only a number of expansions but also a few spin-off games with a similar theme and sharing the name. Pandemic: The Cure is one such game, it recreates the classic Pandemic as a dice game: lighter and faster but with all the original’s elements still there.

Games about making dresses are a tough sell. Between games about conquest, economic success and survival, tailoring just doesn’t compare. So to stand out, a game about making ballroom gowns needs to excel in other areas. Having well linked games mechanics and a new take on deck-building might do the trick for Rococo.

Yet another easy, quick and very clever game: your only goal in Blokus is to place all your tiles on the board, and the only restriction is that they must touch your other tiles, but only by a corner. Oh, and three other people are trying to do the same and get in your way.

Combining boardgames with mobile apps into a game that people actually want to play is the current Philosophers’ Stone and Holy Grail rolled into one for game designers and publishers. The Philosophers’ Grail, maybe. Previous attempts have had lukewarm success at best. But Alchemists is the first in a new wave of games with companion app, and it might just have found the magic formula how do it right.